Posts Tagged ‘Cincinnati Reds’

Thursday was one of those “good news, bad news” days. The good news: I received a copy of Joe Posnanski’s “The Machine” in the mail from Harper Collins (I’m still not entirely sure why this happened, but at least it made me feel important). The bad news: I already bought the book a couple days after it came out. (Actually, I bought two books on that trip to Barnes & Noble: “The Machine” for me and Dan Brown’s latest for my wife; as luck would have it, her mother had already picked up the latter title, making this the single most pointless trip to the book store ever.)

Okay, so the “bad news” is only bad for me. For everyone else, it’s good, because it means we’re gonna be having a contest and a giveaway – and who doesn’t like the opportunity to win free stuff?

Alright, here’s the deal: there’s a quiz on Sporcle where the object is to name the eight regular starters for the Big Red Machine. (Posnanski linked to it earlier this year, and if memory serves, this quiz was my introduction to Sporcle, which means I should both bless and curse the name of Joe Posnanski. God only knows the total number of hours I’ve wasted on that amazing site.) Take the quiz and email me your time at onemoredyingquail@gmail.com. The reader with the fastest time on that quiz wins the book. Easy as that.

As for the book itself, it was an interesting and entertaining read, focusing largely on Reds manager Sparky Anderson and his four biggest stars: Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench, and Tony Perez. The most fascinating part (aside from the implication that Ken Griffey Sr. was a remarkable player who Anderson and The Machine kept from reaching his full potential) was the way Rose and Morgan were portrayed. Fans today “know” those two in particular – Rose as the unapologetic gambler who bet on baseball and Morgan as ESPN’s number one color commentator – and Posnanski paints vivid pictures of the people they were back then.

(A blog was nice enough to link to this post last week – I can’t seem to find the name – and one of the commenters noted that I had left out the Cardinals affiliate in the Gulf Coast League, which changes the team’s overall average but not it’s placement on the list. The new numbers are included below.)

In baseball circles, the name “Kevin Maas” is legend, representative of a highly touted player who bursts onto the scene and fizzles out just quickly. Joe Charbonneau pulled a Maas; so did Bob Hamelin, I’m inclined to say without looking at his numbers.

But this, people…this is just naked aggression toward the man who remains our hero despite having been in the major leagues and theoretically off our radar for a month.

Jay, what do you think of the fact that somebody dared even suggest that you and Kevin Maas might have a connection:

Yeah, can’t say I blame you. Nothing less than mild outrage is to be expected here.

Fortunately the blog post writer came to a very important conclusion: Jay Bruce does NOT equal Kevin Maas. Thank God.

Hardcore fans of Bus Leagues will recall that up until a few weeks ago, I planned to make a pilgrimmage to the Holy Land of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, to see the Louisville Bats take on the Pawtucket Red Sox. Louisville was, at the time, home to a pair of guys I wanted to see up close and person: outfielder Jay Bruce, the official man-crush of this blog, and Homer Bailey, one of the top pitching prospects in baseball.

As the story goes, Bruce was called up two weeks before said trip, Bailey about a week later. Just like that, there was no reason to go to Pawtucket (aside from the chance to see Clay Buchholz or Daisuke Matsuzaka in action).

I can accept that they were called up to The Show. That’s the reality of minor league baseball, and it’s a good one. It’s hard to be upset when a young man’s dreams come true. But when one of those young men is returned to the minors just two weeks later, soon after the Bats left town, that makes me mad (even if his 0-3 record and 8.76 ERA necessitated such a move). You hear that, Walt Jocketty and Dusty Baker? I’m mad, and it’s your fault. Grrrrr!

And to make matters worse, you know what the corresponding move was? Outfielder Norris Hopper was activated from the disabled list. Good for Norris, he’s probably anxious to get back on the field and play ball. But you know what this means, don’t you? (Attention: you are now entering the land of wild conjecture and illogical opinions. Do not, repeat, DO NOT, take any of this seriously. Unless I turn out to be right, in which case you are free to regard me as a God). This means that Reds management is paving the way to rid itself of our hero, the incomparable Mr. Bruce.

The timing has never been better: after a mind numbingly amazing start, Bruce is currently mired in a dreadful 1-for-18 slump, which proves that he doesn’t yet belong at the major league level. (Damn rookies.) Clearly, Hopper’s reactivation is a signal that The Deal will soon rejoin Bailey in Louisville, or worse, relegated to fourth outfielder status. (Yes, I know Norris Hopper has only appeared in 15 games this season, none since mid-April.) I’m onto you, Baker. I’m onto you.

Jacoby Ellsbury, the 13th ranked prospect according to Baseball America’s preseason list, has been on the major league roster of the Boston Red Sox for the entire 2008 season to date, one of about eleven names on the Top 100 to do so.* That makes him one of those guys that occasionally slips through the cracks at Bus Leagues: Ellsbury is clearly a major leaguer at this point, but his place on the Top 100 “allows” us to write about him if we so choose.

Ellsbury is in the news today, not surprisingly, for his legs. Yesterday afternoon in Cincinnati, he stole two bases to tie the Red Sox team record for stolen bases by a rookie. Today, in the very first inning, he rolled a single through the hole between short and third, then stole second on the very first pitch to Dustin Pedroia to break the mark, which had stood since 1908. Ellsbury then stole third and scored on Pedroia’s sacrifice fly.

In breaking the record, Ellsbury victimized fellow top prospect Homer Bailey, making his third start for the Reds. Bailey did not have a good afternoon, allowing five runs in 2.1 innings pitched, including three homeruns (Ellsbury, Coco Crisp, J.D. Drew). His ERA currently stands at a healthy 8.76 after three starts and the team is concerned with a serious decrease in the velocity on his fastball.

I once hit a walkoff homerun. It was in Little League. We were trailing, 8-7, in the last inning when I came up to bat with the bases loaded. I ripped a line drive just inside the first base line and managed to touch ’em all before they got the ball in for a game-winning, inside-the-park grand slam*.

*Truth be told, it was Little League, and I wasn’t the World’s Fastest Kid. There were probably about six errors on the play that allowed me to score. I like my version better.

So yeah, I know EXACTLY how Jay Bruce felt when he crushed this game-winner last Saturday for his first major league homer.